The Game Is On Fics
by MadBadAndDangerous
Summary: A home for my short fiction.
1. I Ensured it

"I Ensured It"

madder_badder

oOoOoOoOoOo

To: s_Holmes.

From: martha_j.

02.12.2005 09.35.48 (GMT)

Dear Mr. Holmes:

My name is Martha Johnson. I found your website, The Science of Deduction, on the internet, and I am hoping you can help me.

Two and a half years ago, my husband, Thomas, passed away. Tom was a good man and he worked hard all his life in order to provide for us in our retirement years. Unfortunately, he developed an aggressive sort of brain tumor, a glioblastoma, three and a bit years ago, which took his life very quickly.

Tom always dreamed of living out his 'golden years' in Florida, and in 1997, we purchased a vacation home here with that idea in mind. We traveled back and forth from London twice a year or so, until November of 2000, when Tom and I were finally able to move to Plantation permanently.

After Tom's death, I had planned to sell up and return to London. At about that time, while I was trying to get everything sorted, I met a lovely American man, a real estate developer, named Steven Johnson. I hope you won't judge me too unkindly, Mr. Holmes, but, after a whirl-wind romance of only three months, Steven and I were married.

The marriage was a happy one, I thought. Steven is an exciting sort of man, Mr. Holmes, charming and handsome, the type who makes a woman feel special, who makes her believe she is the only thing that ever has or ever will matter to him. (My Tom had been a different sort - loving and kind, yes, but quieter, more restrained, more the sitting-down type, if you take my meaning.) Steven loved dancing, fine restaurants, fast cars - you know the sort of man I mean, I am sure. Steven all but showered me with lovely gifts, as well - jewelry, clothes, Caribbean cruises - and being married to him was very intoxicating.

I say intoxicating for a reason, Mr. Holmes. All the adventure and excitement blinded me to who he really was. As you have probably worked out by now, Steven Johnson is actually Stephen Lee Johanessen. Yes, Mr. Holmes, that Stephen Lee Johanessen.

As I am sure you know, Stephen Johanessen has so far been charged with three counts of murder in the deaths of three state police officers who were sent to arrest him at his office (which turned out to be a sham, of course). All the evidence the authorities have gathered so far indicates that he was probably responsible for the deaths of between ten and fifteen young women and girls. More than that, two of his four earlier wives, Tricia Marcus and Claudine Dumont, disappeared without a trace years ago, while the other two died sudden, horrible deaths, probably, the FBI tell me, from poisoning.

I have been a fool, Mr. Holmes, but that is not why I need your assistance. This man must be stopped before he can do this again. He is persuasive and charismatic, and if anyone could talk his way out of conviction, it's Stephen Lee Johanessen. Believe me - I know.

Please, I need your help to see to it that he is punished to the full extent of the law, which in Florida is quite severe.

Thank you for considering my case, Mr. Holmes.

Sincerely yours,

Martha Johnson

(P.S. I will be using my former name, Martha Hudson, when I return to England.)

oOoOoOoOoOo

Sherlock frowned at his monitor. What did this woman possibly think Sherlock could do for her that Johanessen hadn't already done himself? He was an American citizen who would absolutely be convicted of murdering three Florida State police officers in cold blood. Even if none of the other charges could be made to stick, that alone would get him the death penalty.

Child's play.

Sherlock hit delete, and moved on to the next email, hoping for something with more promise.

-30-


	2. A Change of Season

A Change of Season

John didn't know much about gardening - John didn't know anything about gardening, really - but he was fairly certain severed fingers weren't meant to be a big part of it.

"They all look to be from the same set of hands," he said. "That is, they all belonged to the same person, likely female, probably Caucasian." Glancing first at Anderson and then at Lestrade for permission, he plucked one from the wet soil and studied the raw end.

"Very clean cut, so a very sharp instrument, inflicted post-mortem, by the look of it. Not much blood in the soil, so this wasn't done here, but we already knew that." He stood, squinting at the finger in his gloved palm. Translucent worms, as fine and thin as strands of hair, wriggled in and out of the dried and dirty wound.

John wrinkled his nose as he dropped the finger into a specimen jar. Intellectually, at least, he didn't mind death and dismemberment. But he didn't care for the carrion-eaters, the flies and maggots and beetles, that came crawling and writhing and squirming in their wake.

There was some possibility that made him weird. So be it.

"I don't understand," Mrs. Parks, the thoroughly-rattled homeowner, told no one in particular. She had woken that morning to find her newly-planted marigolds scattered about her small, otherwise tidy garden. She'd assumed, she told them when first questioned, that the neighbour's Jack Russell had been the culprit. On closer inspection, however, she'd discovered the flowers had been replaced by a row of ten poorly-manicured and partially-rotten digits pointing skyward. Even without the help of Scotland Yard's best and brightest, she had concluded that Toby probably wasn't responsible, after all.

"Why would someone do this to me? I don't - I mean - I haven't." Defeated by her own inability to articulate what she didn't and hadn't, she simply gave up trying.

"Sherlock?" Lestrade asked. "Got anything?"

Sherlock stood motionless, silently staring at the neat row of nine digits planted in the damp patch of earth. The rest - John, Lestrade, the Yarders, even Mrs. Parks - stood motionless, silently staring at Sherlock, all of them waiting for him to work his magic, to pull that elusive rabbit from his hat.

"Nothing," Sherlock finally said, his voice as dry as talc. He stalked off toward the road before anyone could object. Or stop him. Or sneer.

Lestrade shot John a questioning look. John stripped off his gloves, tossed them in the hazardous waste bag, and tried to formulate an acceptable explanation or excuse or even muster an apology. He found that all he could do in the end was shake his head no: no, he didn't know what was wrong, no, he didn't know how to fix it, no, he didn't want to discuss it, and no, just - just no.

Five weeks of this, John thought as he hurried to catch up. Five weeks of Sherlock utterly failing to be smug or arrogant or haughty or cruel; five weeks without impromptu violin recitals or mad expeditions through sewers or even the smallest household explosion; five full weeks without interminable lectures on why John's taste in everything from reading material to clothing to toothpaste was sub-par.

Five weeks, essentially, of Sherlock not being Sherlock.

"This happens," Mycroft had explained to John a few days earlier. "Sherlock's mind works, as I am sure you are aware, at formidable pace, one that obviously can't continue indefinitely. His hard-drive, as he calls it, occasionally needs time to - what's that phrase? 'Defrag?' I assure you, John, there's no cause for concern on your part." But as always, John found Mycroft's assurances less than reassuring.

There was something fundamentally wrong with him, John concluded. He had the flatmate he'd thought he wanted, now. And he hated it. He absolutely hated it.

They stood on the kerb, waiting for their cab. The wind picked up suddenly, showering them in cherry blossoms. John brushed the delicate white petals from shoulders, watched them fall, ruined, to the ground, and hoped the worst would soon be over.


End file.
